G.PUCCINI - Messa di Gloria, Preludio Sinfonico, Capriccio sinfonico

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) 

Attracted to music from a very early age, Giacomo Puccini studied at the Istituto Musicale Pacini in his native city of Lucca. As the son of a well-known composer and organist, he was still only fourteen when he followed in the family tradition and became organist at San Martino in Lucca, but, far from confining himself to organ music, he soon evinced an interest in the orchestra, completing his early Preludio sinfonico in 1876. Rediscovered more than a century later thanks to the researches of Pietro Spada, this brief prelude already attests to Puccini's remarkable skill in handling orchestral forces, a skill that was to be confirmed in 1880 with his much more ambitious Messa di Gloria (originally entitled Mass for four voices and orchestra). Intended as his final exercise at the Istituto Musicale Pacini, this work already finds the
young composer developing a wholly unmistakable style of his own. The Mass in A flat major is distinguished by the beauty of its vocal writing and by a heartwarming lyricism underscored by extremely inventive instrumentation. Although the Mass remained unpublished, Puccini was clearly sufficiently proud of the piece to reuse certain of its themes: that of the Agnus Dei, for example, is found in more or less identical form in the opera Manon Lescaut.
It would have been shortsighted of Puccini to have eschewed such beautiful melodies either here or in his Capriccio sinfonico. Written in 1883, at the end of his period of study at Milan Conservatory, this last-named piece contains a number of themes that will be close to the hearts of listeners already familiar with La Bohème.
Alain Cochard

Tracklist:

1-5: Messa di Gloria
6: Preludio Sinfonico
7: Capriccio Sinfonico

Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Claudio Scimone
label: Erato

PART I
PART II